I was born of quiet waters, meant only to mirror
the high, bright sun of your desire.
I am the willing shadow in the deep, shadowed woods,
stretching or shrinking, never charting my own light,
lest the path you walk should feel uneven.
I have perfected the art of the nod,
the silent echo in the canyon of your certainty.
My thoughts are pruned like winter branches,
every opinion that might bloom into contention
is clipped before it can take root.
I only carry the beliefs I know will comfort you,
and speak the soft, oiled words that keep the waters still.
I let the current of your collective will
pull me where it pleases, a leaf trusting the river’s strength,
for to insist on steering is to cause a ripple,
and a ripple, I have learned, is unforgivable.
But sometimes, a single, stubborn seed takes hold,
a decision I try to grow beneath the hard earth—
a quiet, desperate refusal, whispered low: I will not.
And the immediate reply is a cold, sharp axe:
“You will change your mind.”
Not a plea, not a question, but the swift, final gavel
of a judge who has already decided my weakness.
It is this certainty that burns the deepest,
the absolute belief that my will is so brittle, so temporary,
it cannot stand for even a moment against yours.
Why can this not be my decision?
Why must my only refusal be treated as a fault line,
a temporary crack that must be filled immediately?
Why can I not simply say what I do not want to do,
and have that pronouncement stand, whole and untouched?
They are taking the very core of me—
the stubborn, small fibers of self that I cling to
like a lifeline in the deluge.
They are shearing away the color from my wilting bloom,
the sound that makes my voice distinct.
Each piece they claim leaves a hollow ache,
a splintered boundary where a wall should be.
How much more of this fragile landscape must be harvested,
how many more decisions taken and tossed aside,
until the thirst of all these people is finally satisfied?
Until I am the perfect mimic they demanded from the start,
an empty vessel echoing nothing but their own sound?
I fear I am already just the satisfied silence,
waiting for the wind to tell me which way to lean.